December 11th, 2007, Dr. Hans ter Steege
December 11th, 2007
Dr. Hans ter Steege
Utrecht University
Institute of Environmental Biology
Continental-scale patterns of tree diversity, composition and function across Amazonia.
The amazon
With it's circa 6 million square kilometres, the Amazon basin is the world's richest terrestrial eco-region in terms of biodiversity and carbon storage.
One hectare of forest in west Amazonia can contain more than 300 species of trees, more than are found in the entire European Union. The entire region contains approximately 20,000 tree species. Likewise, Amazon forests store ca. 100 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon (Malhi et al. 2006), and annually fix and respire c. 18 Gt, equivalent to seven times the combined anthropogenic emissions of the EU (c. 2.5 Gt/y).
In this talk we will focus at the major large scale-patterns of diversity and composition of canopy trees in the Amazon and discuss processes that may underly them at different scales. Tree diversity is arguably a driver for diversity of several 'interstitial groups' and we end the discussion with a comparison of (patterns of) different animal groups with (that of the) trees.
CV
Hans ter Steege is Associate Professor in the Plant Ecology and Biodiversity Group of the Institute of Environmental Biology of the Utrecht University.
Hans ter Steege studied biology at the University of Utrecht where received his MSc in tropical ecology in 1987. After studying the ecology of epiphytes he moved to Guyana and worked c. 9 years as programme director of the Tropenbos-Guyana Programme. In that same period he also worked on his PhD, for which he graduated in 1993. After that he worked on increasingly larger scale-issues in biodiversity, conservation, and carried out several consultancies in NRM and biodiversity conservation. After working one year at the ITC in Enschede, he returned to the Utrecht University.
His main fieldwork activities took place in the Guianas but have also brought him in tropical forest of the other continents and he is expanding his field work to include more places in the Amazon.
At this moment he focuses on tree diversity and mechanisms generating and regulating tree diversity at regional and local scale with in the Amazon.
At the Utrecht University he teaches he courses 'Landscape Ecology and Biodiversity' and 'Evolutionary Biology' and with several colleagues he has given several courses on Biodiversity in Guyana, Brazil, Suriname and Bolivia.
